Building on fall success, UW campuses to expand COVID-19 testing
The University of Wisconsin System announced Friday that its campuses would expand COVID-19 testing for the spring semester, including new requirements for students who live off campus, faculty and staff.
UW universities — excluding UW-Madison — will require all non-residential students, faculty and staff to be tested at least once every two weeks.
Dorm residents will be tested once a week during the spring semester. Many schools previously required students to be tested once every two weeks.
UW-Madison was already testing students living in residence halls weekly during the fall semester, and will expand to twice-weekly testing after winter break. The flagship university also has free testing available for any students who live off-campus, faculty and staff, and conducts regular surveillance testing of random groups of students and employees.
UW System Interim President Tommy Thompson previously issued a directive to all campuses requiring they test students once before leaving for the holiday break and that students must have two negative test results before returning to classes in the spring.
Campuses outside of Madison have been able to expand their testing programs through the use of rapid COVID-19 tests that deliver results in about 15 minutes. Any positive test results are then confirmed with the gold-standard PCR test, which is more sophisticated but can take a day or more to return from a lab.
UW campuses are also providing rapid COVID-19 tests to the broader community until at least Christmas, through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Tests are available by appointment at www.doineedacovid19test.com.
“Frequent testing is critical to minimizing the spread of COVID-19,” Thompson said.
“We have demonstrated at our universities, where the positivity rate has hovered around 3% for weeks, that routine testing is a difference maker. The UW System’s testing program has been pivotal toward ensuring a successful inperson fall semester, and we will do even more this spring given how well it has gone.”